ASHEVILLE — There is at least one thing the seven candidates for seats on City Council agree on: The city should continue a legal fight to hold onto its water system.

Beyond that, their answers to a Citizen-Times questionnaire published today and statements at candidate forums show wide-ranging opinions on city issues.

Some candidates think the city has done well handling taxpayer funds, some don’t. Some favor financial incentives to lure businesses to the city, some don’t. Some think the city is doing well overall, but not all agree on that point.

The Oct. 8 primary narrowed the field of mayoral candidates from three to two, Vice Mayor Esther Manheimer and former city employee John Miall. But because only five candidates filed for the other three seats open on council, a primary for those seats was unneeded for the first time in years.

But there have been things to disagree about — or even shout about, as incumbent Councilman Cecil Bothwell and challenger Jonathan Wainscott did during a forum Thursday.

Here is a quick look at three of the issues the candidates have been talking about ahead of the Nov 5 general election:

• The economy. Manheimer and incumbent Councilman Gordon Smith tout the city’s involvement in bringing companies like Linamar and New Belgium Brewing here, and Manheimer has noted that the Asheville area has the lowest unemployment rate among the state’s metropolitan areas.

They and challengers Mike Lanning and Gwen Wisler have generally backed incentives, although Smith in particular says they need to be retooled to help smaller businesses.

“Asheville’s got to look somewhere else to bring jobs in” and incentives are part of that process, Lanning says.

Miall and Bothwell both oppose incentives. Miall says the city should market itself as a city focused on health and wellness, drop incentives and make the city a place people will “bring their businesses for the same reasons we were drawn here and stay here.”

Wainscott says the city should get into the bottled water business — a step that would require a change in state law — with the proceeds used to bolster schools. That in turn would attract business, he says.

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• Police. All of the candidates express at least some concern about the state of the city Police Department, particularly regarding turnover, but there is disagreement about how well city leaders are addressing those concerns.

Wainscott said Chief William Anderson should be fired, and Lanning said the department “lacks leadership.” Miall says the department has been “rocked with one scandal after another.”

Wisler said at a forum she is “troubled that the police department is as understaffed as it is” but encouraged that city leaders are pushing for improvements in the department.

Smith and Manheimer endorse the process in which two former police chiefs from other cities are being brought in to look at the department, with Manheimer saying “challenges must be addressed head on.”

Bothwell might be the most upbeat on the state of the department. He says there is “dissension in the ranks” but “public challenges to our current chief are principally political in nature.”

• Spending. One worry all the non-incumbents have in common is the state of streets and sidewalks. Lanning, Miall, Wainscott and Wisler each said the city has not given spending on infrastructure a high enough priority.

Wainscott has called Asheville “a city whose infrastructure, quite frankly, is crumbling.”

It will help fund a $111 million capital improvement program over the next five years, much of which will go toward streets, sidewalks, greenways, bike lanes and efforts like burying utility lines along Coxe Avenue in hopes of encouraging redevelopment there.

“During the Great Recession, Asheville tightened its belt,” Smith said. “Now it’s time for infrastructure improvements ... to attract even more private investment.”